While Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (KSC:005930) currently dominates the thriving smartphone commodity display market, a number of Asian rivals are aiming to unseat the South Korean giant. Among them is Japan's Sharp Corp. (TYO:6753).

Sharp announced this week that it would be mass-producing a monstrous 443 ppi (pixels-per-inch) 1920x1080 pixel smartphone screen. The 5-inch screen could appear in devices as early as the holiday season, but will likely show up in greater quantities next year. The new display features a brand new pixel technology dubbed CG-Silicon, which Sharp promises brings smartphone displays in line with their full-size counterparts. Sharp's display likely makes use of the company's new "Igzo" power efficient thin-display tech, as well.

The release marks the latest round in a game of brinksmanship by Japan and South Korea's top display makers. Early this year South Korea's LG Electronics Inc. (KSC:066570) announced production of a similar 5-inch 440 ppi unit, which will likely launch in a similar window. LG calls its display technology "Retina" displays.

Sharp is thinking small with its latest 5-inch 1080 display. [Image Source: IntoMobile]

A third player is Japan's Toshiba Corp. (TYO:6502), which recently demoed a 498 ppi 6-inch display. Toshiba's display could be the most impressive of the bunch -- unfortunately it's not yet quite ready for the market.

quote: If that's the case, why do we need 440 ppi? This will just drain the battery even more!

I've always been under the assumption that display resolution has a very minimal impact on battery life. What matters most is display size and lighting the display with the latter being the primary reason for battery drain.

It becomes a drain depending on what you need to draw on screen. It's not that huge with basic UI elements but once you start animating or running apps at native resolution you start bringing that SoC into play.

We have had that on laptops for years. I am typing this post on one right now. It's my work laptop, a Dell Latitude 6520 with 1920x1080 res. Many other makes and models have this too. Lately, even some 13 inch laptops have it.

But, agreed, it is overkill for a phone. I wouldnt mind seeing a Galaxy Note3 with 1440x900 though =)

The important thing now is getting operating systems and applications to properly support higher DPI on the desktop. The only reason the retina Macbook Pro works at 2880x1800 is because proper scaling (increased font resolution without shrinking anything) is implemented. Even then, it only works the same way that the iPhone and iPad did, which is to directly quadruple the prior default resolution (in this case 1440x900). The rMBP can also emulate other resolutions like 1920x1200 but you run into the same issues where text and UI graphics are smaller than they would ideally be.